The Farquhar Version Released! The 'new' set of WRG-ish WW2 rules just dropped.

John D Salt let me know today that his creation of the 'missing link' in the WRG WW2 company to battalion-level rules has been published on Lulu today. Regular readers of this blog will recall that I had the good fortune to assist with some of the playtesting of this set during 2022 and 2023. I got lots of questions/comments on various forums and on the blog asking when this might be published, so great to see it finally in print! I do recommend it, it seems to me both a faithful representation of the WRG-thinking of the time after 4-5 years of experience with their first WW2 and Modern sets, as well as introducing some minor but useful clean ups to the equipment and the artillery and anti-aircraft mechanics. It is a little more complicated than the original first edition 1925-1950 ruleset, but less complicated than the late 80s 2nd edition. I will do a full review and some more games as soon as my copy arrives!

Narrative OHW Campaign Battle 2: Battle of Lochmire

Campaign Briefing, Battle 02:

Following the success of the Dutch Army at Fernbrae, its leader, General de Ruyter ordered a somewhat leisurely pursuit of the Spanish force towards its Lochmire, where it was besieging that important town, its castle and its Scottish garrison. The Spanish commander, General Sarsfield, covering his retreat with his powerful cavalry arm, moved his main body back towards Lochmire to focus on the siege. However, De Ruyter, screening the Franco-Spanish cavalry with his own, conducted a surprise march to attack a portion of the Spanish lines outside Lochmire.  Sarsfield scribbled an order to an aide, telling him to present it to the commander of his brigade of Dragoons and to return to Lochmire post-haste. Meanwhile, his troops prepared to resist the Dutch attack.

Forces:

The Dutch Army:

C-in-C: General de Ruyter

1st Brigade (C. Murray): Colyear's, Lauder's, Murray's Foot Regts

2nd Brigade (D. Saxe-Weimar): Portmore's Foot Regt, Saxe-Weimar Dragoons, de Vries' Foot Battery,

Garrison: 42nd Foot

Murray's and Colyear's regiments are Veteran, Portmore's is Raw.

The Spanish Army:

C-in-C: General Sarsfield

HQ: Siege Battery, Clermont's Battery

1st Brigade (Reding): Limerick, Ultonia, Royal Eccosais, Light Artillery Battery

2nd Brigade (Meagher): Leon, Toledo

3rd Brigade (Cortes): Mahony's Dragoons, Crofton's Dragoons, Ferrari's Dragoons

The Toledo regiment is Veteran, everyone else is Trained

 

The Set-up:

The garrisoned town with castle to the SW; the advancing Dutch Forces to the West (left); the defending Franco-Spanish Forces to the East (right, centre, top)

A view of the garrison

Saxe-Weimar's Brigade

Murray's Brigade

The Limerick and Ultonia Regiments of Reding's Brigade

Two batteries and the Royal Eccossais garrison the entrenched camp.

Meagher's Brigade

Another view.

The Battle:

As de Ruyter has decided to attack with his Left (top-left), Reding's Brigade tries to redeploy under some irritating artillery fire

Murray's Brigade forms up for the assault

Numbers and skill tell - a couple of devastating volleys and the Spanish brigade is routed!

Reding's troops are making some heavy weather of the redeployment, partly due to the artillery fire but partly sheer incapacity and confusion. However, the French artillery is playing effectively on Saxe-Weimar's Dragoons (centre-left)

Cortes' Brigade of Spanish Dragoons (okay, Italo-Irish!) arrives, hopefully to stem the tide!

Another view. Two regiments are mounted, one on foot.

Reding has at least got his units deployed to protect against any river crossing

Things go from bad to worse for the Spanish: one of Reding's battalions guarding the bridge breaks under artillery fire

Desperate to restore the situation, Cortes' leads his dragoons in a desperate charge

Whilst Dutch (i.e. Scottish) infantry attempt to splash through the river, Reding reforms his troops

The musketry of Murray's brigade beats back the attacking Dragoons

Some success at last! Colyear's regiment breaks under the heavy French artillery fire; however the dismounted Spanish (okay, Italian) Dragoons are about to succumb to the effects of the Scots' musketry (top-right)

Cortes orders his surviving troopers into one more charge...

Which is no more successful than the last! Crofton's Dragoons are destroyed...

And Mahony's Dragoons ride for the rear!

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Spanish Army has had enough and its broken units flee, its unbroken units retreat

View at the end of the battle.

Game Notes:

 The Spanish Army will have to retreat and re-group after two defeats at the hands of the Dutch. The invasion of New Dalrydia is misfiring badly! Hopefully I will get to part 3 soon...

 

A fun game and a reasonably comprehensive victory for the Dutch: most things they tried worked, most things the Spanish tried did not! Ruse de Guerre gave a good, swift game although it is very generically 'horse & musket' - in particular the artillery is probably a little too powerful, although it isn't the biggest issue in the world. You wouldn't think it perhaps from the game but I did slightly change the firepower calibration to requiring a 7+ to shake an opponent (although I kept at 10+ to break, still wondering if I need to move that to 11). More specifically, the Spanish kept on getting awful tempo point allocations on key turns, mimicking quite well the 'shock' that armies can experience when attacked in surprising and impactful ways. So it worked quite well as part of this mini-campaign.

 

 

Very well done to anyone who twigged the scenario this was taken from: it as an NT-esque adaptation of the Castillon scenario from back in Miniature Wargames 02 - it seemed to take the treatment quite well and the broad scenario fitted quite easily into the campaign narrative.

Figures by Baccus 6mm, mostly the buildings are from Leven, and the fortifications are from Irregular. 

 

Lutzen - Neil Thomas-esque; or The Battle of Fenbrae

As well as a historical refight of Lutzen, I also constructed a OHW-Type generic scenario for a game with my C18 toy soldiers and using the Polemos: Ruse de Guerre rules.

I pitted a Spanish-led WSS army against a Dutch-led WSS Army. As is typical (and allowing for my slight whimsy in emphasizing it), there were naturally relatively few Spaniards or Dutchmen on either side!

The Spanish Army:

4 Infantry units (Limerick, Ultonia, Leon, Toledo), 1 Artillery unit (Clermont's Battery), 5 Cavalry units (Cosse, La Valliere, Berry, La Feronaye, Sheldon)

The Dutch Army:

6 Infantry units (Lauder, Murray, Portmore, Colyear, Tscharner, Albemarle), 3 Artillery units (de Vries Bty, two light regimental gun batteries of Cooper and Mercer), 4 Cavalry units (Aughrim, Athlone, Livregiment til Hest, Saxe-Coburg Horse Guards)

Reinforcement Column: 1 infantry unit, 1 cavalry unit

To give the Spanish Army a fair crack, the Spanish infantry units were assumed to be Well-Trained. All other units on both sides were Trained, except the Hussars, who were counted as Poorly-Trained).

Special Rules: 

From turn 8 onwards, a heavy fog falls. Firing or movement past 1BW is not permitted.

From turn 5 onwards, the Dutch player rolls a die at the beginning of their turn. On a '6', the reinforcement column arrives on the left-rear of the Dutch baseline.

For reasons which I will explain later, I called this The Battle of Fenbrae...

The Set-Up:

The battlefield: the Dutch Army is in the foreground, the Spanish Army in the background.

The road has a wall next to it which counts as cover from fire and in melee. The hill is gently-sloped. The built-up area is a typical town.

Looking at the Spanish Army from behind the Dutch position.

Another view.

The Battle:

Like their historical counterparts, the Spanish move to the attack - their fire pushes back the Scottish infantry of Lauder and Murray's regiments (centre)

A counter-attack by Lauder's Regiment pushes back the Ultonia regiment (centre-left); the Toledo regiment is sufferingt from the fire of the Dutch artillery

The Leon Regiment's musketry shattered and broke Portmore's Regiment, but Dutch artillery and the prompt reinforcement by Colyear's Regiment restores the situation and pushes back the Spaniards.

French Cavalry manages to break some Allied cavalry and get forward past the town, pushing the Saxe-Coburg Horse Guard backwards; they are taking fire from its occupants however (a Swiss regiment)

However, the Scottish infantry have destroyed the Limerick Regiment and pushed back Ultonia's again. The Leon regiment (which had been accompanying the cavalry, top) has been broken. The Toledo Regiment has reformed, and its long-range fire is causing casualties amongst van der Vaart's gunners (bottom-right)

Dutch Cavalry try and work around the Spanish flank, after the French Cavalry has suffered heavy losses from the fire of the Swiss Infantry, supported by guns, behind the wall.

The Ultonia Regiment in the centre is finally broken, and retreats (centre-left)

The Spanish Army retreats in confusion.

Game Notes:

Good simple fun, when I didn't find anything more complex. Ruse de Guerre really is a fun set. That said, I am wondering if firepower is just a little too effective. I am wondering if I should slightly decrease its effectiveness, through changing the bands. Currently, on a modified d10 roll, <=5 is fine, 6 to 9 is shaken, >=10 is broken. I am wondering if I should set shaken to 7 or 8; and maybe broken to >=11. This would make it just that bit less effective, and rely more on breaking units through inflicting two levels of shaken instead - which then makes quick rallying and hence command effort more important.

The scenario was really easy to translate to OHW-esque. All it needed was an effect for a long linear feature, which doesn't really exist in the original OHW scenarios. It is hardly a departure, however. Even though it is a lot simpler than the actual Lutzen scenario I played, it does capture a lot of the feel for it, which I guess is a lot of support for the approach. That said, and circling back to the first point, using both fewer units AND combat mechanics which have a higher chance of instant or quick unit destruction, does give the game a much more random feel: part of the reason why Neil Thomas himself goes for rules which are basically predicated on attrition is to slighly tone this down, I imagine.

 

 Figures are by Baccus 6mm, buildings mainly by Leven, with the fortifications from Irregular.

 

 

 

As well as  a simpler game, I was using this as part of a test I am doing into some narrative campaign structures. This is the initial rubric:

Campaign Background:

The Spanish invasion of New Dalrydia was unexpected, coming at a time of severe constitutional and hereditary crisis in the nations of England, Scotland, Ireland and Holland. The casus belli seemed weak, even by the standards of the day: a combination of the claim of New Dalrydia to belong to the Roman province of Hispania rather than Caledonia; the gift of a medieval Pope hitherto agreed by everyone to be a Dark Age forgery; and a tenuous claim going through the female line to the throne of the former 'Kingdom of Dalrydia'. The first target of the Spanish Army was the town of Lochmire. A Dutch Army was hastily put together and transported to the support of its allies. Its commander, General de Ruyter, made its first base near the town of Fenbrae. The Spanish Army, commanded by General Sarsfield, was at this time laying siege to Lochmire, took a portion of his army to attack this base before the Dutch could properly occupy it and prepare for the march to the relief of Lochmire.  The first action then, fell on a somewhat misty day just outside Fenbrae...

 

Lutzen 1632 - A Twilight of Divine Right refight

A few days ago, I had a go at the next Twilight of Divine Right scenario, that for the Battle of Lutzen 1632. It appears in the second Twilight of Divine Right Thirty Years' War scenario book, To the Peace of the Pyrenees. It is an interesting battle - I remember reading a scenario for it in one of the very early Miniature Wargames, and I am pretty sure I have done it before, using Neil Thomas' rules for Pike & Shot games (update: I had indeed). In any case, this scenario also proved to be 'interesting' - but I will save the detail of that for the Game Notes at the bottom...

At the beginning of the battle, the numbers are reasonably equal - although the Imperialists do seem a tad stronger - but the Imperialists are due to be reinforced by Pappenheim's column of Horse and Foot on turn 6. And a heavy fog is due on turn 8. The Swedish leaders are rather more dashing than the Imperialist leaders, as something of a counter-balance.

The Swedish Army: 7 infantry brigades, 11 cavalry units, 3 artillery units

The Imperialist Army: 9 infantry units, 1 musketeer unit, 14 cavalry units, 3 artillery units (and 3 infantry units and 4 cavalry units with Pappenheim)

Both armies have some commanded shot, and most of the Imperial infantry has regimental guns attached.

 

The Set-Up:

View from the side: Swedish and German allies to the left, Imperialists to the right

Looking at the Imperialist army

The Imperialist Right

The Imperialist Centre

The Imperialist Left

Looking at the Swedish Army from a vantage point behind the Imperialists

The Swedish Right

The Swedish Centre

The Swedish Left

The Battle:

There wasn't much space for manoeuvre and with Pappenheim due to arrive, it fell to the Swedes to attack and hopefully create some gaps to exploit.

Some very good shooting by the Imperialist Army on Windmill Hill in the centre wipes out one of the Swedish attacking infantry brigades. Not an auspicious start!

Okay, battle is joined in earnest - the Swedish Right does manage to get over the road, in  part.

And then in full - the Imperialist Horse is more pushed back than defeated though, and the combat continues

And suddenly some of the Swedish Horse is simply cut down in the centre, the ebb-&-flow of battle now threatening the Swedish Right (visually, many of the Swedish Horse units are in the single row formations, whilst the Imperialists are in double rows, in an approximation of the 'Dutch' style); you can also see that there is an ongoing firefight in the centre: the Imperilalists are holding their positions, but perhaps suffering somewhat heavier casualties in the process

The Imperialist Horse showing up well against the Swedish Right

Losses mount in the centre, without anything much else occurring

Fire from the Imperialist musketeers and artillery has broken a regiment of Swedish/German Horse (see gap on road) in the centre

The Swedish Foot is finding it difficult to make headway in the centre

The ebb-and-flow of the Horse fight continues on the Swedish Right, but the centre of the Swedish Horse looking distinctly shaky - and there are no real reserves at hand...

Okay, the Swedish Foot have eliminated the lead Imperialist Foot units and are over the road

A wider shot - the Swedish progress has been bloody, slow and small so far!

The Swedish-German left has been attrited away into serious trouble! The briefly got past Lutzen but have been counter-attacked with heavy losses

In the centre however, the Swedish Foot are just about hanging on; but note that Pappenheim's column has arrived to reinforce the Protestant Left (top-right)

Weimar's wing (the Swedish Left) has been worn down to nothing.

Which is really unfortunate, as the Swedish Foot are just starting to make real headway in the centre!

The Swedish Right is in trouble too - although they have made decent progress next to the Swedish infantry, they are beginning to crumble to the far right - note the gap that the Imperialist Horse are about to advance through (centre-right)!

Things cannot hold - the Swedish Right turns and runs

And the Swedish Left - the little that remains - likewise leaves the field of battle

Abandoned by their flanking Horse, the victorious Swedish Foot must flee also! At least the incoming fog spared them any meaningful or organized pursuit!

The position at the end of the battle - Wallenstein has triumphed and beaten off Gustavus Adolphus. Hey, not all bad for the latter though - at least he survived this time!!

Game Notes:

An exciting battle, if not perhaps a very tactically interesting one, if you know what I mean! I felt that the OoB felt a little hard on the Swedes compared to my (very limited) understanding of the battle, but I am sure that the experts at the Wyre Forest Gamers know better than me. However, what did feel odd was the scale of the battle/size of the table. I use single base units on a 60mm x 30mm-sized base: the Polemos standard, if you will. Twilight of Divine Right is designed for each unit to be two bases strong, both 60mm x 30mm. Now, the exact size is explicitly not supposed to matter, so don't think I am doing anything 'wrong' here. The main difference is that my infantry units are somewhat deeper than those envisaged by the rules, although the only battle that has mattered for so far is White Mountain, where it was quite hard to fit in all the units in the required depth. But the issue in this scenario was one of width, which shouldn't be affected at all. But the scenario as written proposes a 4'x3' table, which when reduced to account for my smaller width units, should reduce to 2'x1.5': my board above was actually bigger in the sense of deeper than that as designed. However, the number of units designated as in the first line for the Imperialists was simply bigger than the width of the board! 

 

The Wyre Forest Gamers actually posted their pictures of Lutzen and very nice they are too.

But it seems to be a much more spacious affair!  So the somewhat crowded battlefield really limited the Swedish options for manoeuvre, as well as the Imperialist Right, which could hardly do anything but locally respond to the Swedish attack. So, very interesting translation of the battle.

In any case, the refight was good fun. The quality of the Swedish commanders, especially Gustavus, enabled them to stay in the game longer than the raw numbers might have implied, but I do think they need a bit of luck somewhere to win this one. Perhaps an interesting variant would be for the Swedish player to favour the draw and invite the Imperialists to attack, and then counter-attack. Some of the rules around infantry fire and close-combat superiority are a little involved (the Swedes can change the ratio of their pikes-to-muskets and thus who has combat advantage) and I maintain that an action test to get a +1 would amount to much the same effect in the end, but it wasn't hard. I don't recall having any real issues with the rules in this one, which is always a good thing!

Figures by Baccus 6mm, buildings were a mixture of Leven and Battlescale.